System, method and computer program product for debugging an assertion

ABSTRACT

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms and methods for debugging an assertion. These mechanisms and methods for debugging an assertion can enable improved interpretation and analysis of data validation results, more efficient development associated with data validation, etc.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.12/962,532, filed Dec. 7, 2010, which claims the benefit of U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/320,118, filed Apr. 1, 2010, theentire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

One or more implementations relate generally to data validation, andmore particularly to debugging data used for validation.

BACKGROUND

The subject matter discussed in the background section should not beassumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in thebackground section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the backgroundsection or associated with the subject matter of the background sectionshould not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the priorart. The subject matter in the background section merely representsdifferent approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.

Data validation is a common practice of conventional systems. Forexample, a first login service may desire to validate a user login witha second login service (e.g., in a single sign-on environment, etc.).Unfortunately, conventional validation techniques have been associatedwith various limitations.

Just by way of example, traditional methods of validating a user loginwith a login service may require a specific format that may provedifficult to follow. Additionally, any errors encountered during thevalidation may result in cryptic error codes that may prove difficultand time-consuming to manually interpret and address. Further, errorsencountered during the validation may stop the validation process fromcontinuing. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide techniques thatimprove the interpretation and analysis of conventional validationtechniques.

BRIEF SUMMARY

In accordance with embodiments, there are provided mechanisms andmethods for debugging an assertion. These mechanisms and methods fordebugging an assertion can enable improved interpretation and analysisof data validation results, more efficient development associated withdata validation, etc.

In an embodiment and by way of example, a method for debugging anassertion is provided. In one embodiment, an assertion is received at adebugger. Additionally, the assertion is debugged, utilizing thedebugger. Further, results of the debugging are returned.

While one or more implementations and techniques are described withreference to an embodiment in which debugging an assertion isimplemented in a system having an application server providing a frontend for an on-demand database system capable of supporting multipletenants, the one or more implementations and techniques are not limitedto multi-tenant databases nor deployment on application servers.Embodiments may be practiced using other database architectures, i.e.,ORACLE®, DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope ofthe embodiments claimed.

Any of the above embodiments may be used alone or together with oneanother in any combination. The one or more implementations encompassedwithin this specification may also include embodiments that are onlypartially mentioned or alluded to or are not mentioned or alluded to atall in this brief summary or in the abstract. Although variousembodiments may have been motivated by various deficiencies with theprior art, which may be discussed or alluded to in one or more places inthe specification, the embodiments do not necessarily address any ofthese deficiencies. In other words, different embodiments may addressdifferent deficiencies that may be discussed in the specification. Someembodiments may only partially address some deficiencies or just onedeficiency that may be discussed in the specification, and someembodiments may not address any of these deficiencies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the following drawings like reference numbers are used to refer tolike elements. Although the following figures depict various examples,the one or more implementations are not limited to the examples depictedin the figures.

FIG. 1 illustrates a method for debugging an assertion, in accordancewith one embodiment;

FIG. 2 illustrates a system and method for initiating debugging of anassertion, in accordance with another embodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an example of an environmentwherein an on-demand database system might be used; and

FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of elements of FIG.4 and various possible interconnections between these elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION General Overview

Systems and methods are provided for debugging an assertion.

As used herein, the term multi-tenant database system refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and software of thedatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers.

Next, mechanisms and methods for debugging an assertion will bedescribed with reference to example embodiments.

FIG. 1 illustrates a method 100 for debugging an assertion, inaccordance with one embodiment. As shown in operation 102, an assertionis received at a debugger. In one embodiment, the assertion may includea message. For example, the assertion may include a request to verifyone or more elements of data. In another example, the assertion mayinclude a request to log a user into the system. In another embodiment,the assertion may include one or more elements of data. For example, theassertion may include a user name, a timestamp, a certificate (e.g., anauthorization certificate, etc.), etc.

In yet another embodiment, the assertion may be encoded (e.g., utilizingExtensible Markup Language (XML), base64 encoding, etc.). Further, inone embodiment, the assertion may be sent from one entity (e.g., aserver, a multi-tenant on-demand database system, etc.) to anotherentity. For example, a user may be associated with a first entity (e.g.,logged into the first entity, verified by the first entity, etc.), andmay desire to log into a second entity. Additionally, the assertion maybe sent from the second entity to the first entity in an attempt toverify the user and log the user into the second entity.

In another embodiment, the assertion may be of a specific file type. Forexample, the assertion may include an Extensible Markup Language (XML)file, a base64 encoded format file, etc. In yet another embodiment, theassertion may be associated with a user of an entity (e.g., a client, aserver, a multi-tenant on-demand database system, etc.). For example,the assertion may be associated with a particular user of anorganization of a multi-tenant on-demand database system.

Additionally, in one embodiment, the debugger may include software thatis installed on an entity. For example, the debugger may be installed ona client, a server, a cloud, a multi-tenant on-demand database system,etc. In another embodiment, the assertion may be received at thedebugger if the assertion fails to be validated. For example, theassertion may be received at the debugger if one or more errors aredetected during the validation of the assertion (e.g., at the entity,etc.). In yet another embodiment, the debugger may intercept theassertion. For example, a first system may send the assertion to asecond system, where the debugger is installed on the second system.Further, the debugger may intercept the assertion at the second system.

Also, in one embodiment, the assertion may be cached (e.g., at thesystem where the debugger is installed) before or after processing theassertion and may be sent to the debugger if an issue is found whileprocessing (e.g., parsing, etc.) the assertion at the system. Forexample, one or more errors may be determined during the processing ofthe assertion at the system, and the cached assertion may be sent to thedebugger as a result of determining the errors. In another example, thecached assertion may be sent to the debugger in response to the userlaunching a debugger page. In another embodiment, the cached assertionmay be associated with a user of the system, and the debugger may beautomatically populated with the assertion based on the user'sinformation within the system. Further, in another embodiment, theassertion may be recreated. For example, the assertion may be recreatedin response to a request (e.g., by a user, by the debugger, etc.), andmay be input into the debugger.

Further still, in one embodiment, the assertion may be input into thedebugger utilizing a user interface (UI). For example, the text of theassertion may be copied and pasted into a field of a UI page associatedwith the debugger, and may be submitted to the debugger once a button isselected on the UI page (e.g., a “validate” button, etc.). In anotherembodiment, the assertion may be input into the debugger as part of aninitial setup.

Additionally, it should be noted that, as described above, suchmulti-tenant on-demand database system may include any service thatrelies on a database system that is accessible over a network, in whichvarious elements of hardware and software of the database system may beshared by one or more customers (e.g. tenants). For instance, a givenapplication server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows for apotentially much greater number of customers. Various examples of such amulti-tenant on-demand database system will be set forth in the contextof different embodiments that will be described during reference tosubsequent figures.

Furthermore, as shown in operation 104, the assertion is debugged,utilizing the debugger. In one embodiment, debugging the assertion mayinclude monitoring the validation of the assertion by the debugger. Forexample, the debugger may monitor each step of the system validationprocess while the system validates the assertion (e.g., utilizing avalidator of the system, etc.). Additionally, in another embodiment, thedebugger may record one or more errors that occur during the validationof the assertion. For example, the validation of the assertion mayinclude checking a plurality of elements associated with the assertion(e.g., a time of a last login, a time stamp, a certificate, a username,etc.), and one or more errors may occur if one or more of the elementsof the assertion are found to be invalid. Additionally, these errors maybe recorded by the debugger. In another embodiment, the one or moreerrors may each be represented by an error code, an error condition,etc.

In yet another embodiment, the debugging may continue after an error isencountered during validation. For example, instead of exiting after afirst error is discovered during validation, the error may be logged andthe debugging and validation may continue until all elements associatedwith the assertion are checked. In another embodiment, overrides may beused to continue running the validator even when an error is found. Inthis way, the entirety of the assertion may be debugged in one pass.Additionally, in one embodiment, the debugging may include associatingthe one or more errors with a user of the system.

Also, as shown in operation 106, results of the debugging are returned.In one embodiment, the results may include the results of every step ofthe validation that was monitored by the debugger, along with anindication of whether each step caused an error vas successful,depending on whether the validation passed or failed for that step. Inanother embodiment, the results of the debugging may be displayedutilizing an interface. For example, the results may be displayed to auser, administrator, etc. via a user interface.

In yet another embodiment, the results of the debugging may include oneor more translated error codes. For example, the debugger may translatean error code that was discovered during the debugging into a naturallanguage description of the error that may include details such as aspecific description of an error (e.g., “user does not exist,” etc.), alikely cause of the error (e.g., “time stamp was five hours out ofdate,” etc.), a possible solution for the error (e.g., “need to accountfor different time zone,” etc.), etc. In another embodiment, the errorcodes may be displayed in addition to their translations. In this way,the recipient of the results of the debugging may be able to easilyunderstand what errors occurred during the validation, and what errorsneed to be addressed in the assertion.

In yet another embodiment, the results of the debugging may include oneor more symbols or colors associated with the results. For example, oneor more green bars may be associated with elements of the assertion thatdid not cause an error during debugging. In another example, one or morered bars may be associated with elements of the assertion that did causean error during debugging. Further, in another embodiment, the resultsof the debugging may include a report. For example, a report may bereturned that lists every element of the assertion, along with anindication of whether the element caused an error during debugging.

Additionally, in one embodiment, the results of the debugging may besent as an electronic mail message (e.g., to an administrator, to a userassociated with the assertion, etc.). In yet another embodiment, theresults of the debugging may be presented to a user when they log intoan organization of the system. In still another embodiment, one or moreadditional actions may be performed, based on the results. For example,if one or more particular errors are detected during the debugging(e.g., an expired certificate, etc.), or if one or more particularerrors are detected multiple times over a predetermined time period(e.g., signifying a malicious system attack, etc.), an email alert maybe sent (e.g., to a system administrator, etc.).

In this way, a user may be provided with a debugger resource where theycan simply enter an assertion in a field, press a button, and determinedwhether the assertion would have been accepted by the system.Additionally, error messages provided as a result of the debugging maybe clear and explanatory, and less cryptic than a generic numericalerror code. Further, all elements of the assertion may be debugged atonce, even if errors are encountered before all elements are debugged.

FIG. 2 illustrates a system and method 200 for initiating debugging ofan assertion, in accordance with another embodiment. As an option, thepresent system and method 200 may be carried out in the context of thefunctionality of FIG. 1. Of course, however, the system and method 200may be carried out in any desired environment. The aforementioneddefinitions may apply during the present description.

As shown in operation 202, an entity 220 attempts to sign on (e.g., login, etc.) to a system cloud 222 by sending the system cloud 222 anassertion (e.g., an encoded security association markup language (SAW)assertion, etc.). In one embodiment, the assertion may be associatedwith a user. For example, the user may be currently logged into theentity 220. In another example, the entity may send the assertion in anattempt to log the user on to the system cloud 222. In yet anotherexample, the assertion may ask the system cloud 222 whether a userexists, whether the user is valid, whether the user has one or morepermissions, etc. In this way, the entity may request a determination ofwhether the user has been verified by the system cloud 222.

Additionally, as shown in operation 204, it is determined that theattempt to sign on to the system cloud has failed, and the assertion ispushed to the failure cache 224. In one embodiment, the failure cache224 may be associated with an organization. For example, the failurecache 224 may be located in an organization associated with the user. Inanother embodiment, the assertion is stored at the failure cache 224.

Further, as shown in operation 206, the entity 220 receives a failedresult from the system cloud 222. For example, the entity 220 mayreceive an indication from the system cloud 222 that the user could notbe verified, that the user could not be logged in to the system cloud222, etc. Further still, as shown in operation 208, an administrator 226launches a debugger at the system cloud 222. In one embodiment, theadministrator 226 may launch the debugger in response to the failedresult sent to the entity 220. In another embodiment, the administrator226 may be in charge of setting up the communication procedure betweenthe entity 220 and the system cloud 222. In yet another embodiment, theadministrator 226 may launch the debugger from a user interface locatedat the system cloud 222.

Also, as shown in operation 210, the assertion is popped from thefailure cache 224 and is automatically populated into a debugger withinthe system cloud 222. In one embodiment, the debugger may debug theassertion sent from the failure cache 224 and may return results of thedebugging to the administrator 226. In this way, the administrator 226may be able to easily initiate the debugging of a failed login assertionwithin the system cloud 222.

System Overview

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an environment 310 wherein anon-demand database system might be used. Environment 310 may includeuser systems 312, network 314, system 316, processor system 317,application platform 318, network interface 320, tenant data storage322, system data storage 324, program code 326, and process space 328.In other embodiments, environment 310 may not have all of the componentslisted and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to,those listed above.

Environment 310 is an environment in which an on-demand database systemexists. User system 312 may be any machine or system that is used by auser to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems312 can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptopcomputer, a work station, and/or a network of computing devices. Asillustrated in FIG. 3 (and in more detail in FIG. 4) user systems 312might interact via a network 314 with an on-demand database system,which is system 316.

An on-demand database system, such as system 316, is a database systemthat is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarilybe concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, butinstead may be available for their use when the users need the databasesystem (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand databasesystems may store information from one or more tenants stored intotables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system(MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database system 316” and “system 316”will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one ormore database objects. A relational database management system (RDMS) orthe equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information againstthe database object(s). Application platform 318 may be a framework thatallows the applications of system 316 to run, such as the hardwareand/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an embodiment, on-demanddatabase system 316 may include an application platform 318 that enablescreation, managing and executing one or more applications developed bythe provider of the on-demand database system, users accessing theon-demand database system via user systems 312, or third partyapplication developers accessing the on-demand database system via usersystems 312.

The users of user systems 312 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 312 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, where a salesperson is using a particular user system 312 tointeract with system 316, that user system has the capacities allottedto that salesperson, However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 316, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level.

Network 314 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 314 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. As the most common type of computer network in currentuse is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol)network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred toas the “Internet” with a capital “I,” that network will be used in manyof the examples herein. However, it should be understood that thenetworks that the one or more implementations might use are not solimited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol.

User systems 312 might communicate with system 316 using TCP/IP and, ata higher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 312 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from anHTTP server at system 316. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface between system 316 and network 314, but othertechniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations,the interface between system 316 and network 314 includes load sharingfunctionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balanceloads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality ofservers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, eachof the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data; however, otheralternative configurations may be used instead.

In one embodiment, system 316, shown in FIG. 3, implements a web-basedcustomer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in oneembodiment, system 316 includes application servers configured toimplement and execute CRM software applications as well as providerelated data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and fromuser systems 312 and to store to, and retrieve from, a database systemrelated data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system,data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical databaseobject, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of onetenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that onetenant does not have access to another tenant's data, unless such datais expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system 316 implementsapplications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. Forexample, system 316 may provide tenant access to multiple hosted(standard and custom) applications, including a CRM application. User(or third party developer) applications, which may or may not includeCRM, may be supported by the application platform 318, which managescreation, storage of the applications into one or more database objectsand executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the processspace of the system 316.

One arrangement for elements of system 316 is shown in FIG. 3, includinga network interface 320, application platform 318, tenant data storage322 for tenant data 323, system data storage 324 for system data 325accessible to system 316 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 326for implementing various functions of system 316, and a process space328 for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes,such as running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 316 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 3 include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 312 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAR) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. User system 312 typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., abrowsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAR-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 312 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 316 over network 314. Each usersystem 312 also typically includes one or more user interface devices,such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen orthe like, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) providedby the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.)in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other informationprovided by system 316 or other systems or servers. For example, theuser interface device can be used to access data and applications hostedby system 316, and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwiseallow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented toa user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitable for use with theInternet, which refers to a specific global internetwork of networks.However, it should be understood that other networks can be used insteadof the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual privatenetwork (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one embodiment, each user system 312 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 316(and additional instances of an NITS, where more than one is present)and all of their components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using a central processingunit such as processor system 317, which may include an Intel Pentium®processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. A computerprogram product embodiment includes a machine-readable storage medium(media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be used toprogram a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodimentsdescribed herein. Computer code for operating and configuring system 316to intercommunicate and to process webpages, applications and other dataand media content as described herein are preferably downloaded andstored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof,may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory mediumor device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on anymedia capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotatingmedia including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk(DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, andmagnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs),or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/ordata. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may betransmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmissionmedium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is wellknown, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection asis well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communicationmedium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as arewell known. It will also be appreciated that computer code forimplementing embodiments can be implemented in any programming languagethat can be executed on a client system and/or server or server systemsuch as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language,JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, andmany other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to one embodiment, each system 316 is configured to providewebpages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client)systems 312 to support the access by user systems 312 as tenants ofsystem 316. As such, system 316 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant toinclude a computer system, including processing hardware and processspace(s), and an associated storage system and database application(e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also beunderstood that “server system” and “server” are often usedinterchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described hereincan be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 4 also illustrates environment 310. However, in FIG. 4 elements ofsystem 316 and various interconnections in an embodiment are furtherillustrated. FIG. 4 shows that user system 312 may include processorsystem 312A, memory system 312B, input system 312C, and output system312D. FIG. 4 shows network 314 and system 316. FIG. 4 also shows thatsystem 316 may include tenant data storage 322, tenant data 323, systemdata storage 324, system data 325, User interface (UI) 430, ApplicationProgram interface (API) 432, PL/SOQL 434, save routines 436, applicationsetup mechanism 438, applications servers 400 ₁-400 _(N), system processspace 402, tenant process spaces 404, tenant management process space410, tenant storage area 412, user storage 414, and application metadata416. In other embodiments, environment 310 may not have the sameelements as those listed above and/or may have other elements insteadof, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 312, network 314, system 316, tenant data storage 322, andsystem data storage 324 were discussed above in FIG. 3. Regarding usersystem 312, processor system 312A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 312B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 312Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 312D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 4, system 316 may include a network interface 320 (of FIG. 3)implemented as a set of HTTP application servers 400, an applicationplatform 318, tenant data storage 322, and system data storage 324. Alsoshown is system process space 402, including individual tenant processspaces 404 and a tenant management process space 410. Each applicationserver 400 may be configured to tenant data storage 322 and the tenantdata 323 therein, and system data storage 324 and the system data 325therein to serve requests of user systems 312. The tenant data 323 mightbe divided into individual tenant storage areas 412, which can be eithera physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within eachtenant storage area 412, user storage 414 and application metadata 416might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of auser's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage414. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage area 412. A UI 430 provides auser interface and an API 432 provides an application programmerinterface to system 316 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 312. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as one or more Oracle™ databases.

Application platform 318 includes an application setup mechanism 438that supports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage322 by save routines 436 for execution by subscribers as one or moretenant process spaces 404 managed by tenant management process 410 forexample. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 434that provides a programming language style interface extension to API432. A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments isdiscussed in commonly owned co-pending U.S. Provisional PatentApplication 60/828,192 entitled, PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE METHOD AND SYSTEMFOR EXTENDING APIS TO EXECUTE IN CONJUNCTION WITH DATABASE APIS, byCraig Weissman, filed Oct. 4, 2006, which is incorporated in itsentirety herein for all purposes. Invocations to applications may bedetected by one or more system processes, which manages retrievingapplication metadata 416 for the subscriber making the invocation andexecuting the metadata as an application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 400 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 325 and tenant data 323, viaa different network connection. For example, one application server 400₁ might be coupled via the network 314 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 400 _(N-1) might be coupled via a direct networklink, and another application server 400 _(N) might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection, Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 400 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain embodiments, each application server 400 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 400. In one embodiment, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 400 and the user systems 312 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 400. In one embodiment, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 400. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user couldhit three different application servers 400, and three requests fromdifferent users could hit the same application server 400. In thismanner, system 316 is multi-tenant, wherein system 316 handles storageof and access to, different objects, data and applications acrossdisparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 316 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 322). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 316 that are allocatedat the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an NITS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant specific data, system 316 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are shambleamong tenants.

In certain embodiments, user systems 31 (which may be client systems)communicate with application servers 400 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 316 that may requiresending one or more queries to tenant data storage 322 and/or systemdata storage 324. System 316 (e.g., an application server 400 in system316) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one ormore SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information.System data storage 324 may generate query plans to access the requesteddata from the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects. It should be understood that “table” and “object” may be usedinterchangeably herein. Each table generally contains one or more datacategories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema.Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for eachcategory defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may includea table that describes a customer with fields for basic contactinformation such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc.Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields forinformation such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. In somemulti-tenant database systems, standard entity tables might be providedfor use by all tenants. For CRM database applications, such standardentities might include tables for Account, Contact, Lead, andOpportunity data, each containing pre-defined fields. It should beunderstood that the word “entity” may also be used interchangeablyherein with “object” and “table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/817,161, filed Apr. 2, 2004, entitled “Custom Entities and Fields ina Multi-Tenant Database System”, and which is hereby incorporated hereinby reference, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects aswell as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system.In certain embodiments, for example, all custom entity data rows arestored in a single multi-tenant physical table, which may containmultiple logical tables per organization. It is transparent to customersthat their multiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table orthat their data may be stored in the same table as the data of othercustomers.

While one or more implementations have been described by way of exampleand in terms of the specific embodiments, it is to be understood thatone or more implementations are not limited to the disclosedembodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover variousmodifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims shouldbe accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all suchmodifications and similar arrangements.

1. A computer program product embodied on a non-transitory computerreadable medium, comprising: computer code for receiving an assertion ata debugger, wherein the assertion includes a name and authorizationcertificate; computer code for debugging the assertion, utilizing thedebugger, wherein the debugging includes validating the assertion bychecking the name and the authorization certificate included in theassertion; and computer code for returning results of the debuggingincluding an indication of whether an error occurred during thevalidating of the assertion.
 2. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein the assertion includes a request to log a user into a system. 3.The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the assertion isencoded utilizing Extensible Markup Language (XML).
 4. The computerprogram product of claim 1, wherein the debugger is installed on amulti-tenant on-demand database system.
 5. The computer program productof claim 1, wherein the computer program product is operable such thatthe assertion is received at the debugger if the assertion fails to bevalidated.
 6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein thecomputer program product is operable such that the assertion is receivedat the debugger if one or more errors are detected during a validationof the assertion.
 7. The computer program product of claim 1, whereinthe computer program product is operable such that the debuggerintercepts the assertion.
 8. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein the computer program product is operable such that the assertionis cached before or after processing the assertion and is sent to thedebugger if an issue is found while processing the assertion.
 9. Thecomputer program product of claim 8, wherein the computer programproduct is operable such that the cached assertion is sent to thedebugger in response to a user launching a debugger page.
 10. Thecomputer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer programproduct is operable such that the assertion is input into the debuggerutilizing a user interface (UI).
 11. The computer program product ofclaim 10, wherein the computer program product is operable such thattext of the assertion is copied and pasted into a field of a UI pageassociated with the debugger, and is submitted to the debugger once abutton is selected on the UI page.
 12. The computer program product ofclaim 1, wherein debugging the assertion includes monitoring thevalidation of the assertion by the debugger.
 13. The computer programproduct of claim 12, wherein the computer program product is operablesuch that the debugger records one or more errors that occur during thevalidation of the assertion.
 14. The computer program product of claim12, wherein the computer program product is operable such that thedebugging continues after an error is encountered during validation. 15.The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the computer programproduct is operable such that overrides are used to continue running avalidator even when an error is found.
 16. The computer program productof claim 12, wherein the computer program product is operable such thatthe results include results of every step of the validation that wasmonitored by the debugger, along with an indication of whether each stepcaused an error or was successful, depending on whether the validationpassed or failed for that step.
 17. The computer program product ofclaim 1, wherein the results of the debugging include one or moretranslated error codes.
 18. A method, comprising: receiving an assertionat a debugger, wherein the assertion includes a name and authorizationcertificate; debugging the assertion, utilizing the debugger, whereinthe debugging includes validating the assertion by checking the name andthe authorization certificate included in the assertion; and returningresults of the debugging including an indication of whether an erroroccurred during the validating of the assertion.
 19. An apparatus,comprising: a hardware processor for: receiving an assertion at adebugger, wherein the assertion includes a name and authorizationcertificate; debugging the assertion, utilizing the debugger, whereinthe debugging includes validating the assertion by checking the name andthe authorization certificate included in the assertion; and returningresults of the debugging including an indication of whether a erroroccurred during the validating of the assertion.
 20. A method fortransmitting code for use in a multi-tenant database system on atransmission medium, the method comprising: transmitting code forreceiving an assertion at a debugger, wherein the assertion includes aname and authorization certificate; transmitting code for debugging theassertion, utilizing the debugger, wherein the debugging includesvalidating the assertion by checking the name and the authorizationcertificate included in the assertion; and transmitting code forreturning results of the debugging including an indication of whether anerror occurred during the validating of the assertion.
 21. The computerprogram product of claim 1, wherein the assertion is received at thedebugger by a user: inputting the assertion into a field of a userinterface, and selecting a button on the user interface to submit theassertion to the debugger.
 22. The computer program product of claim 1,wherein debugging the assertion include determining whether the name isinvalid.
 23. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein debuggingthe assertion include determining whether the authorization certificateis invalid.
 24. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein theresults of the debugging may include one or more translated error codes,wherein the translated error codes are codes for errors discoveredduring the debugging that are translated into a natural languagedescription.
 25. The computer program product of claim 24, wherein anerror is discovered during the debugging when the authorizationcertificate is determined to be expired.